Replies

1. 
   Guest_ | Mar 22, 1999 06:27am | #1

   *
   I'm not sure how COOL they are, but here are some interesting ones:

   White House virtual tour: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/tour/html/index.html

   building museum: http://www.nbm.org/

   old house journal: http://www.oldhousejournal.com/

   preserve net: http://www.preservenet.cornell.edu/

   preservations briefs: http://www2.cr.nps.gov/tps/briefs/presbhom.htm

   traditional building magazine: http://www.traditional-building.com/

   historical preservation: http://www.nthp.org/

   architects: http://www.aiaonline.com/

   building designers: http://www.aibd.org/

   architecture virtual library: http://www.clr.toronto.edu:1080/VIRTUALLIB/arch.html

   my own web page w/ links to some of the above: http://home.att.net/~g.wheeler/index.html

1. 
   Guest_ | Mar 22, 1999 05:51pm | #2

   *Thanks Gary,Umm, I guess I didn't really mean Cool sites. Maybe that's why no one has answered this post -- everyone thought I was looking for a "Chase the Goblin" game.I spent last weekend searching for Historic Preservation sites and came up with quite a few. Two were on your links page: Traditional Building magazine and Old House Journal. Tha National Park Service has some good ones too.Mostly, I was looking for ways to tell approx how old an old house is from the street. Or at least without going to the County Courthouse to dig through the records. ThanksDan Morrison,

1. 
   Guest_ | Mar 22, 1999 07:04pm | #3

   *Dan, you need to have a field guide type reference book... there are several, but look for ones that break the construction info into eras... Pre-Colonial, Colonial, Adams/Federal, Antebellum, First Empire, Second Empire... etc...Then be aware of transitional styles, additions, and "modernizations" over the years. Several oldvernacular New Englanders were "updated" to pseudo-First Empire Victorians... they really date from the 1820 to 1850s... but look decades newer.Hit the bookshelves! Enjoy.

1. 
   Guest_ | Mar 24, 1999 03:16am | #4

   *Thanks George,I do have one book: The Visual Dictionary of American Domestic Architecture or some such thing. It's pretty good and breaks it down as you describe above except uses some different terms. I guess I was wondering if builders through history really followed the time lines set out in the architectural books. For example were they still building a lot of Greek-Revivals during, say, the late Victorian period? Or were the time lines pretty accurate? It would be neat if I could rely on style...happily huntin' houses,Dan Morrison

1. 
   Guest_ | Mar 24, 1999 06:54pm | #5

   *http://www.artifice.com/gbc/buildings.html#P

2. 
   Guest_ | Apr 08, 1999 01:00am | #6

   *Dan,If your interested in Architectural History one of my favorite books is "The Architecture of Country Homes" by Andrew Downing - 1829. Andrew Downing planned many of the Victorian era homes in America. This book however, outlines practical homes for farmers and "common gentlemen". His views on the religious and political reasons for rejecting or accepting European practices tell alot about the American state-of-mind at the time. Darrell

3. 
   Guest_ | Apr 09, 1999 08:09am | #7

   *Thanks Daryl,I'll check it out. I love old houses and would like to make the switch to restoring the old rather than plowing up the farms to make more new ones. Dan